“As I sat in gridlock traffic in the motionless, bright yellow Opel Astra OPC — coincidentally munching on a similarly yellow banana — an elderly couple looked over from the adjacent lane. The 70-something woman in the passenger seat of the neat six-gen Honda Civic shot me the type of glare usually reserved for thieves, murderers and those vile shoppers who abandon their trolleys in the middle of a busy aisle.

Strangely enough, that perfectly sums up Opel’s newest, most powerful Astra. It’s the type of hot hatch that old folk simply hate. It’s brash. It’s loud. It’s essentially a giant yellow middle finger to social order. Which, of course, only serves to make it even more desirable to the younger generation…

An immense two-tier roof spoiler, chunky side-skirts and tasty two-tone 20-inch alloys immediately draw the eye, while more subtle touches such as the two trapezoidal exhaust exits and a handful of sweeping styling lines add visual depth. Although the design is relatively simple, the muscular Astra OPC really is one of the better-looking hot hatches on the market. And just as the eye-catching OPC elicits stern head-shaking from septuagenarians, it provokes stares of admiration and even squeals of delight from the younger crowd.

Of course, this appreciation is not based on its appearance alone. Under that neatly sculpted bonnet lurks one of the most powerful production 2.0-litre four-cylinder engines around…”